This product was not featured by Product Hunt yet. It will not be visible on their landing page and won't be ranked (cannot win product of the day regardless of upvotes).
Hourcast
YouTube podcast ads, optimized for listeners not views
Your episodes are great. The challenge is getting the right people to find them. Hourcast runs the YouTube ads that do it — and optimizes them for full-episode listeners, not empty views. It tracks what Google Ads can't: Cost per Completed Hour. Then it automatically shifts your budget toward the campaigns bringing people who watch your podcast start to finish. New listeners, real watch time, scalable audience growth. Connect your account and grow. $20/month.
Hey Product Hunt!
I built Hourcast because of a frustrating discovery: podcasters can grow with YouTube ads — but Google's algorithm works against them.
Here's the problem. Google Ads optimizes for views, clicks, and cheap impressions. But a "view" of a 90-minute podcast episode can mean someone watched 3 seconds. That's not a listener. That's wasted budget.
What actually matters for a podcast is completed listening time — people who make it through the whole episode. Those are the ones who subscribe, come back, and become fans.
The catch: Google Ads has no way to optimize for this.
So I built it externally. Hourcast calculates your Cost per Completed Hour from quartile data, then automatically shifts your daily budgets toward the campaigns bringing full-episode listeners at the lowest cost. You connect your account, and it just runs.
Question for the podcasters here: have you ever tried paid promotion for your show?
What stopped you — or what went wrong when you did? Genuinely curious, because "ads don't work for podcasts" is the myth I'm trying to kill. 🎙️
the cost per completed hour metric is genuinely useful — way more actionable than ctr or view count when you're trying to grow a podcast audience.
Finally got around to testing Hourcast and the cost per completed hour metric is honestly something I wish I'd had months ago. Shifted budget away from a campaign that looked fine in Google Ads but was burning through people who bailed after ten minutes.
Really cool concept, tracking cost per completed hour instead of just views makes a lot of sense honestly. One thing I'd love to see is some kind of audience overlap report so I know if the same people are hitting me from multiple campaigns. Would make budgeting way less messy.
honestly this looks solid, love the focus on cost per completed hour instead of vanity metrics. one thing though, it'd be really helpful if you could show me which specific episodes are driving the best retention so i know what topics to lean into more. basically a breakdown tying ad performance back to episode content would be a game changer
Tracking Cost per Completed Hour is a smart angle, most tools stop at clicks or views. One thing that would make this even more useful for me is showing which specific episode or topic the budget should shift toward, not just which campaign. If I could see which show topic actually hooks new listeners to the end, I could create more of what clearly works instead of guessing.
this looks really useful honestly, the cost per completed hour angle is smart. one thing though, would be great if you could segment the dashboard by show topic or guest type so we can see which content themes actually drive full episode listeners, not just overall numbers. that would help us plan what to make more of.
Have you considered adding a dashboard view that shows listener retention curves for each ad campaign, so we can actually see where people drop off instead of just the final cost per completed hour?
This is really useful for podcasters tired of vanity metrics. One thing that would make it even better: a built-in feature to test different ad hooks or thumbnails side by side. Knowing cost per completed hour is great, but seeing which creative actually drives those completions would close the loop and make the optimization even stronger.
Set it up in about 10 minutes and was surprised to see which episodes actually drove full listens versus just clicks. The cost-per-completed-hour metric finally makes ad spend feel less like guessing.
The Cost per Completed Hour metric is a smart way to measure what actually matters. One thing that would help me as a user is a small dashboard view showing my top-performing audience segments by topic or episode type, so I can see which themes pull in the most finishers and double down on that content. Even a basic weekly email summary would do it.
Loved the focus on real watch time instead of vanity metrics. One thing that would help me decide is a built-in competitor dashboard showing how my cost per completed hour stacks up against similar podcasts in the same category, without needing to dig through separate reports.
About Hourcast on Product Hunt
“YouTube podcast ads, optimized for listeners not views”
Hourcast was submitted on Product Hunt and earned 14 upvotes and 15 comments, placing #153 on the daily leaderboard. Your episodes are great. The challenge is getting the right people to find them. Hourcast runs the YouTube ads that do it — and optimizes them for full-episode listeners, not empty views. It tracks what Google Ads can't: Cost per Completed Hour. Then it automatically shifts your budget toward the campaigns bringing people who watch your podcast start to finish. New listeners, real watch time, scalable audience growth. Connect your account and grow. $20/month.
Hourcast was featured in Advertising (29.8k followers), YouTube (16.9k followers) and Audio (2.1k followers) on Product Hunt. Together, these topics include over 13k products, making this a competitive space to launch in.
Who hunted Hourcast?
Hourcast was hunted by Michal Compel. A “hunter” on Product Hunt is the community member who submits a product to the platform — uploading the images, the link, and tagging the makers behind it. Hunters typically write the first comment explaining why a product is worth attention, and their followers are notified the moment they post. Around 79% of featured launches on Product Hunt are self-hunted by their makers, but a well-known hunter still acts as a signal of quality to the rest of the community. See the full all-time top hunters leaderboard to discover who is shaping the Product Hunt ecosystem.
Want to see how Hourcast stacked up against nearby launches in real time? Check out the live launch dashboard for upvote speed charts, proximity comparisons, and more analytics.
Michal Compel